Apple's M1 MacBooks are great because Apple has already designed everything in its own right and has just taken one step further by continuing to design the processor. Yes, Intel in other processors is already designed. So they just got to it from the other side and created this laptop. That looks like a MacBook. It is a bold and strategic approach. Let's see if we can figure it out. With Glass Wire you can keep track of the strange stuff that connects to your PC, or don't use them. If a strange device joins your WiFi, you will be notified immediately. I have to be clear, in fact Intel has had its laptops for years, privately. For example, back in 2011, Intel released their details of what they called the Ultrabook. A small, simple Windows notebook that did not damage performance or battery life. To get laptop manufacturers to start with this concept, Intel has provided them with a reference model that they can use as a starting point for their custom designs. Because let's be honest, some of these laptop companies need help to build laptops that look like Decepticon. I've had a few hands on these types of intelligence devices in what I call the secretCES secret over the years, and the thing that frustrates me is that most of the time, device or device device seems so close to something that I would actually want to buy more than anything my partners end up building and apparently Intel feels the way the same because in 2019, they decided to create a reference design that was best for the consumer and announced the NUC9 Extreme Laptop Kit. Like NUC's desktops, these Whitbooks came unattended, remembering the operating system, which was intended to be installed by Intel partners who would also adjust the system and software settings before removing the laptop from their product. The birth of MAINGEAR Element, Eluktronics MAG-15 and XPG Xenia. Which brings us to this model. This is the XPG Xenia Xe, actually a painted version of Intel's new NUC M15 Laptop Kit. While previously based on the Core i7 9750H basic and intelligent GPU, this Intel's Slatest Quad core 7-1185G7 sports one, as the name suggests, graphics of Intel's Iris Xe. Now the latter is designed as a direct gaming laptop but this model is what the XPG calls the Notebook gaming for life. While Ultrabook was designed to compete with MacBook Air, this is Intel's new Evo brand, which aims to make the MacBook Pro more efficient in terms of performance. I think, now that there have been a few visual gifts, you will be forgiven for thinking that this was the MacBook Pro, since 2015.

 Office minimalists can appreciate the simple, straightforward design of Xenia Xe with CNC made of aluminum shell machine but even though I explained it to you guys, I still don’t know what this thing is. What are gaming? And how is it that Windows computer makers can just be seen taking on the Apple logo? Put this item next to the MacBook and it looks cheap. It is not at all like our companies from lttstore.com, which still look good, if not better. But let's take a closer look and Xenia Xe immediately started building a site. I mean, for one thing, in addition to the two thunderstorms, there are actually two USB-type ports of 10 gigabit types, as well as HDMI and a jackphone, so you don't have to keep your wallet full of dongles. XPG has provided 16 gigs of LPDDR4X memory and one terabyte S50PCR Express GEN4M.2SSD, so it's nice and fast and has Windows Hello and close sensors that wake up the laptop as you approach, leading to another of the most complex processes we have ever encountered. In terms of performance, the Core i7 1165G7 here is a step away from the earlymodel 1185G7 power machine we looked back on in September, but the only real difference between the two chips is a slightly lower clock speed and of course, the story here is the same. Xenia Xe was able to pull off three frames per second in Shadow of the Tomb Raider in very low settings and 26FPS in the middle, actually similar to the performance of that first unit. Driver upgrades may have helped with that, but it’s amazing. Ultra settings have hundreds of settings, dreams of remote board graphics, but 1080p settings and low to scale, competitive multiplayer games, such as Rocket League, CSGO and Rainbow Six Siege are fully played. I say it one last time and I will say it again, the fact that we use this in integrated graphics, from Intel below, is amazing.Onto the lifestyle sideof lifestyle gaming, I guess, maybe, for us that means moretraditional benchmarks. In LuxMark, the Xenia Xeout performed every laptop in the lineup of Notebooksfrom our M1 MacBooks review and in Cinebench and Geekbench, while it didn't beat the MacBooks, it came real close, whilebeating the XPS13 2-in-1, an excellent laptop builton the same processor. Photoshop runs like it should, while scrubbing 4K footagein Premier is pretty smooth at half preview quality. And in our Handbrake Hardware H 265 test, while the Xenia Xedidn't beat the MacBooks, it finished the encodein almost half the time of the XPS 2-in-1, even thoughthey have the same model of CPU in them. I guess that means Intel'sthermal and power solution is quite a bit beefier, even if it did spike up to96 degrees under full load and hovered around 90 degrees once the, thankfully quiet, fans kick in. The Xenia Xe is thin and light enough to be easily toteable, it's got enough battery tolast you through the work day, into the evening and evenbeyond if you're nice to it and it's got a beautiful IPS touch display that can open all the way to 180 degrees, with four far field mics on top, so you can talk to either Cortana or Alexa and see the light barbelow the track pad light up which would be great ifthe screen wasn't 1080p, the integrated webcam wasn't so bad. - And that their fancy microphone array sounded a little bit better. - I give it a B then for lifestyle. But the performance story is pretty good. I mean, we've givenIntel a pretty hard time for dropping the ballon the past year or so, so it's a treat to see an Intel Notebook compare so favorablyto Apple's M1 machines so soon after being put to shame. It's also interesting that this laptop out performed the Dell by such a degree. Like what the heck Intel? Why have you been hiding the fact that you can apparentlymake a straight fire laptop just like Apple. Don't hide that under a bushel. You gotta let that light shine, bro. Now to be fair, Intel's already doing that by releasing the NUC M15 through partners like XPG and the pricing seemsto reflect their confidence in this machine. 

The Xenia Xe starts at 1359US for the Core i5 config and 1549 for this Core i7 model, which is actually notbad for a premium laptop. It's cheaper than a MacBook. We did find a couple oflaptops with the same processor for around half the price online, but, as we saw on our benchmarks, the processor isn't everything. These cheaper modelshave half the storage, less memory, much less battery life and no thunderbolt. So the Xenia Xe seemsto tick a lot of boxes for someone who wants a clean,MacBook like experience, but with Windows. Intel has freeloaded acouple of bloatwares, but one of them is a simpledriver update utility with aesthetics that don't assume you're the most bad ass gamerto ever hit the inter webs and the other is a GForce experience style graphics utility thatlet's you update drivers and tweak global graphics settings like Adaptive Tessellation, Retro Scaling and Smart VSync. So I dare say this laptopmight be the Windows laptop for MacBook fans. Now, we've talked a lotin this video about Intel, but let's not forgetthis is being released under the XPG brand, so it's true that Inteldid the bulk of the work designing it, but thatisn't to disparage XPG or the other companiesthat Intel works with to release these models. XPG told us that the process of getting Intel's reference design ready for the market is a collaborative one. The two companies worktogether to make decisions about components, the bio'sand software configuration and the packaging, but XPG also knows that at it's core, this is an Intel design andthey think it's really cool that Intel wants to help them and other up and coming laptop makers work towards developing their own fully custom designed laptops. I mean, this is only XPG's second laptop they've ever released and the first one was also an Intel NUC. So if Intel can drive theWindows laptop market forward with excellent, ready togo designs like this one, while continuing to work with partners on custom designs, who knows? They might just be donewith dropping the ball. They might even be picking it up. Maybe? Just like I'm picking upthe Segway 2R sponsor. DROP at THX came togetherto create the DROP THX Panda wireless headphones. With them, audio qualityis no longer reserved for folks with wires. They claim they're theworld's most distortion free wireless headphonesand from my experience, that actually soundspretty darn believable, these things are sick. They're closed back headphones so you won't be dealingwith any distractions and they use THX's tripleA amplifier technology. They boast 30 hours of wireless life, dual microphones, Bluetooth connectivity, compatibility with digital assistance and you can even get adetachable gaming mic.